Heroes of the New Day

What began as a simple journey has turned into so much more...

After almost 2 years of schedules getting in the way, we decided to officially call an end to this campaign. I’m keeping all the info up, just for reference & fun, but no new content will be added.

Below is the email I sent to players, revealing all the long-running campaign secrets that would have come out over the 30-level campaign, had it continued.

Hey folks,
So it’s been almost 2 years since our last session of the 4E D&D game we were playing together, and as much as it pains me to leave anything unfinished, I think it’s time to officially call it quits for our game. Our schedules and lives have taken us in vastly different directions that are not conducive to being able to get together regularly. Not that this is a bad thing. Some of us have brought (or are bringing) little people (and/or little dinosaurs) into the world. Some of us have found new jobs. Some of us are in Hawaii redefining our lives. Some of us are responsible for rewriting every idiotic 5E adventure that gets shoved at stores to keep the current, completely unbalanced edition of D&D playable for in-store games.

But before I call it quits, there were some ongoing plots that I hadn’t planned on springing on you till later levels, but that I thought you might want some insight into. I enjoy littering random hints about far future plots into games, so I thought you might want to know what some of those random bits of info were in relation to. So here it is, as complete a list as I can muster of all the behind-the-scenes larger plots going on in our game, as well as many of the future plans I had.

Praxis & Akara: Much was made of the fact that you two seemed to keep reincarnating into eachother’s lives. Always there was some name connection (I like nerdy things like that), and one time “Praxis” was a hunter with 6 ghoul claw marks on her face… who called herself Lady “Six” Arpaggia (which has “praxis” in it if you read it backwards… more on backwards names later).

So you’ll remember that there was that racist human kingdom, Pax Humana. They formed their hatred of nonhumans when their beloved human rulers had their baby murdered in her crib by what was assumed to be non-human forces many millennia ago (details were sketchy). That baby’s name was Pax, meaning “peace”.

You’ll also remember that Lusemnee, the daughter of the assassin god Zehir and likely original goddess of Akara when she was Arkariel the angel, had a sudden change of heart, stopped working as her dad’s chief assassin, and was eventually murdered by her dad.

All of this ties together. Zehir sent his daughter to assassinate the baby Pax. Lusemnee took her two best archangels, Arkariel and Kalariel, with her. Kalariel was set outside, to guard against intrusion, while Arkariel accompanied her goddess into the child’s room. Seeing that the child was innocent, though, Arkariel threw herself in front of Lusemnee’s blade, which pierced both the angel’s hear and that of the baby… divinely tying their souls together. That selfless act is what opened Lusemnee’s eyes to the callous nature of her father’s tasks, that she wasn’t just killing people who deserved to die, and set her on the path away from divine assassinations (until her father caught up with her, that is… more on that below).

Lusemnee, Dumathoin, Atalantea, and the Warforged: Lusemnee wandered, lost, after that event (she even forgot her other Archangel, Kalariel, in her grief and uncertainty. She ended up finding shelter with Dumathoin, the dwarven god of secrets under the mountain. Dumathoin’s libraries had many secrets, and were also being used by a young librarian named Ioun, who was reeling with her own great loss and newly-found divinity (more on her below). Dumathoin took compassion on both, and allowed them to hide in his secret libraries, where Ioun solidified her new existence as Knowledge incarnate, and Lusemnee was able to look into possible new paths for herself. It was during this time that, to help Ioun master the impossible information in her head, Lusemnee learned to craft. Applying the cleverness she’d previously used to stake out targets, maneuver them perfectly, and assassinate them… she was able to manipulate and maneuver magic and raw intellect to form the first Ioun Stones, which helped the fledgling goddess Ioun to order her infinite thoughts.

Lusemnee found that she had a true knack not just for crafting, but for inventing and creating brand new things as well. She began working on a plan to create a new race, to make up for all those she had killed, and also to help the struggling mortal races still trying to recover in the wake of the dawn war, where the fights between Gods & Primordials had ravaged existence.

Lusemnee took dominion of an island in the Astral Sea called “Atalantea”. I was connected via portals to a parallel island of the same name in the mortal realm, and island populated by gnomish followers of Gond, the bringer of Wonders. Gnomes on this island tended to get massive ideas suddenly (due to the spiritual connection to the creativity of Lusemnee on the island’s twin). Dumathoin was able to keep the astral version of the island secret, though, so Lusemnee could still exert divine power and receive some semblance of worship, but not reveal herself to her father.

Unbeknownst to anyone, the dwarven god Dumathoin actually fell early in the Dawn War. The primordial that defeated him, though, gained insight into the god’s nature as it devoured him, and decided to instead take his place. If Dumathoin got more secretive, nobody thought that was weird. But this is why, whenever mention of Dumathoin was found in game, it was near primordials or other elemental phenomenon… because Dumathoin doesn’t actually have angels, since he is not a true god.

But back to the Warforged. Zehir is really good as slithering into even the most secretive of places, and he soon found his daughter and went to kill her. This was right near the time of the Great Cataclysm (which I’ll also get to later… sorry, these are all inter-twined, so there’s lots of setup). Zehir found Lusemnee in the Astral Sea, and assassinated her. As her divine essence was bleeding out, though, she summoned all her angels to the island and commanded that they give themselves to her new cause: helping mortals experience the spark of creativity, and bringing that creativity to life. They all died with her, and were reincarnated into machines on the mortal version of Atalantea… the first Warforged. Creativity was so rampant on that island, though, that the island itself was also capable of forming a sort of mechanical intelligence itself… a sort of singularity. So Lusemnee’s spirit became an A.I. island of mechanical wonders. Dumathoin saw this and despaired, for Zehir would certainly realize he hadn’t fully succeeded, and would return to finish the job. As the energy of the Great Cataclysm hit, though, another god arrived to offer an alternative… Vecna, a new god of secrets & undead.

The evil sorcerer Vecna was already in the process of becoming a god, but needed allies in his youthful divinity. He and Dumathoin visited Atalantea in disguise, where Vecna pledged to combine his secret powers with Dumathoin’s to keep the island forever safe. The gnomes of the island fashioned a new mechanical hand and eye for Vecna, and Vecna & Dumathoin combined their energies (along with power of the Great Cataclysm) to fuse the two islands and lift them into the sky. Because of the danger to Lusemnee, Vecna (who has always enjoyed stealing knowledge more than just keeping is secret) arranged a field of forgetfulness, where any Warforged that left the island would forget its past and origin. Vecna also likely wanted to use the idea of warforged for his own means, which is why we saw Vecna’s lich servant trying to create “boneforged” undead constructs (in the narrated end to Mike/Karath’s story, which involved his soul & that of a warforged getting sucked into a Thayan lab).

So Atalantea is actually a flying island, shielded from sigh by the combined powers of Dumathoin & Vecna, occasionally blipping between the mortal world and the Astral Sea, drifting in both. The warforged that sometimes arrive on earth are the souls of angels in mechanical bodies that either fall off the island or choose to jump, hoping to escape what has become a trap for them, and to (ideally) send word back to the island (and the remainder of Lusemnee in A.I. form) about the state of the world. The eyes are windows into the soul, though, which is why when a warforged showed up, Akara recognized some bit of the eyes, as she probably knew that angel in their former lives.

Kalarel & the demon Mr. Lee: The rakshasa Kalarel, formerly the archangel Kalariel, was a recurring villain in our campaign. He claimed to have once been best friends with Akara, and the way he was able to push her buttons certainly suggested that they had a close relationship at one point. As I just mentioned, they did. However, Kalarel never saw what happened to his goddess. He never knew of her change of heart. He just knew that Akariel disappeared, and that suddenly his divine inner harmony with his goddess was out-of-synch.

His desire to keep killing, to be her best archangel, put him at odds with his goddess’s new path, and he did not understand how to reconcile his nature and her new desires. So he arranged to take his own life, but he failed and reincarnated. He tried again and again, failing each time, growing more bitter and more striped each time. He paid no attention to Lusemnee’s new interests or evolving nature, and instead got drunk on killing others before killing himself… repeating that cycle over and over again. During one of these times in-between lives, Lusemnee was killed, so Kalarel reincarnated as a full rakshasa (missing out on the Warforged thing), and knew that his connection to his goddess was forever severed because he could not feel his goddess anymore (hidden as she was by Dumathoin and Vecna).

Kalarel knew that the only one who could truly kill him for good (and hopefully return him to his dead goddess’ side) was the only friend he’d ever had who was better at killing than he was: the archangel Arkariel. THAT is why he kept seeking out Akara, to awaken the killer inside her and eventually set her off to kill him and give him final rest. But he knew that she’d never go for it if he told her directly, and centuries of brooding had made Kalarel quite clever & resourceful.

So he invented a new persona (rakshasa are master illusionists, remember) and became his own “rival”, the demon Lee. You’ll remember that Mr. Lee once gave the party a business card with his full name on it. He pronounced his full name, but told the party they could just call him by the shortened form: Lee. The full name, though, was Le Ralak Asah-skar E’ht Y’lter’ces. If you read that name backwards, however, you’ll see that he’s “Secretly the Rakshasa Kalarel”. Remember that I always said he wore John Lennon sunglasses? That was so Akara could never look into his eyes and see who he truly was. I also tried to have them always show up in the same places, but at different times. I was SO looking forward to the day Akara realized that, just to see the look on Valarie’s face. Oh well.

So the goal was for Mr. Lee to guide Akara to the immortal-slaying angel gear that she’d had in her previous lives, and then convince her to use it on Kalarel, whom she’d hopefully hate enough by that point that she wouldn’t question it. Kalarel’s whole run was a laugh at the futility of existence once your connection to god was gone, an extended assisted suicide attempt that required Akara’s help.

Oghma & Tharizdun, also Baba Yaga: Remember that the first god of Knowledge, Oghma, was the first to fall in the Dawn War? Nobody knew who killed her, but it started the war. Oghma, like Kalarel, was trapped by a sense of overwhelming futility. Knowing EVERYTHING, she reached that point many intellectuals do where she knew too much for her own good, where she focused on the nature of death and decay. Being a goddess of prophesy as well, she KNEW there were many futures in which all was lost. This threw her into a deep despair that actually created one of those futures. In the same way that Onslaught was created in the X-Men comics universe (professor X’s brain formed a psychic child in his head out of memories of Magneto), Oghma started to turn into Tharizdun, destroying her old self to become a god of nothingness. Her wisdom, though, knew that this was bad, and formed an offshoot “child” of her intellect that took mortal form… the witch Baba Yaga. This psychic child also got some of Oghma’s insanity, though, which is why she knew every spell in existence, but also was incredibly unstable and often couldn’t remember everything. Remember when there was a dream that Elizabeth/Ginger had, where Baba Yaga’s name was pronounced in a strange tongue, & sounded like Babua Yoghma? That was in reference to her true nature. Baba Yaga was the one who took the librarian/high priest Ioun to Dumathoin’s library, and was a big reason she became the new Goddess of Knowledge, because the old woman knew that her psyche was too fragile to trust with that kind of power/responsibility.

As god of all Knowledge, Oghma/Tharizdun was able to implant the knowledge of Tharizdun being a god that always existed in the heads of the rest of existence. Knowing most everything that could or would be done to her, she was also impossible to stop. It was only through joining in an attack with the primordials (negotiated by Dumathoin, actually, who secretly knew how to speak to both sides) that Tharizdun could be defeated and trapped. The Spider Queen Lolth spun unbreakable strands of web that Corellon infused with magic and Moradin forged into four great manacles (which Bahamut then solidified with platinum fire) to chain Tharizdun in a crystal gate that would forever keep out the Outsiders that Tharizdun had tried to summon to destroy reality. The war gods drove her to the trap, while the primordials focused their chaotic energy into her, filling her with such turmoil that she could not focus on the Knowledge contained in any one god’s head, and thus could not learn their plan ahead of time. The crystal gate was set up across dimensions, with two bonds forming a strong physical gate in the mortal realm, with two lesser variations on the gate… on in the Astral Sea, the other in the Elemental Chaos.

The Great Cataclysm: This was a major mystery throughout the campaign. The war between the dragonborn of Arkhosia and the tieflings of Bael Turoth was horrible, but it was both sides that caused the Cataclysm. Separately, each side found Knowledge that had been lost, and learned of these barriers that were holding back an immense power. Because each side wanted that immense power for themselves, and did rituals to shatter the barrier to gain the power. On that one fateful day, two of the chains holding Tharizdun back were destroyed, and the resulting waves of energy destroyed both nations and caused the Great Cataclysm. The crystal gate in the mortal reality shattered (creating the shardmind race), leaving only one echo each in the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos. A major plot of epic play was going to involve trying to protect these last 2 bonds before Tharizdun could be freed again.

The Lost Ionian Army: Remember that there was a whole thing with a lost dwarven army and a disappeared former king of Ionia, Bator Ironhammer, which threw the nation into chaos until King Titus Imperius and his party were able to take their dragon hoard winnings and remake the nation.

The black dragon family that killed King Bator Ironhammer’s father (and resulted in Bator’s rise to political power) in the Chamber of Crumbled Valor in the town of Ironhammer was a mother and several young. The father dragon was also there… but was something different.

That dragon, Duon-drithid, was the result of experiments by illithids in the Underdark. It is a shapeshifter who can assume the form of any creature it devours. More than just the form, it absorbs the memories of the creature, allowing it to fairly accurately “become” the creature (using an idea I pulled from a shape-changing race in Brian Sanderson’s Mistborn books).

This first victim happened to be the young Bator Ironhammer, the only “survivor” of that battle. As Bator, Duon-drithid was able to ride the political tides to become King of Ionia. Remember, Valarie, that there was a strange ghost child in the caves near where Akara’s backstory happened? That was Bator’s ghost.

When the battle at Dismalin happened, the necromancer Ssaz Tam summoned dark magics that called an evil mist to strip the spirits and souls of those present. This destroyed both armies, but Duon-drithid was able to transform and fly above the mist, devouring Ssaz Tam before flying away. This mist was the same mist that takes you to Ravenloft, but I hadn’t figured out how I was going to use that, yet.

The mist turned all present into some form of ghosts, so that even the undead armies that had been under Tam’s control lost their physical forms and became ghosts as well, though their souls were eaten by the mist (and maybe transported to a Ravenloft-type plane), so the ghosts have little to no memory of who they were. They only know that they are soldiers now.

Duon-drithid flew to Thay, where he became “Ssaz Tam” and has been working his way up that political ladder to take control of the mage-ocracy of that nation. Whether he does this out of his own ambition, or out of some mind-controlled plan from the Illithids is uncertain. What is also uncertain is how much of the devoured creatures’ souls (and consciences) Duon-drithid absorbs/inherits when he changes.

This was going to be a paragon-tier plotline, with political stuff in Ionia if the truth was revealed, as well as using some great half-illithid minis I’d picked up. Bringing in mind flayers also might have let me “uncover” some memories from Akara, or potentially play other head games.

The Stasis/Chaos Matrix: The Stasis Matrix that the crazy archmage Malachi Johnson set up in Dragon Mountain was often referred to, but seldom followed-through on. It was supposed to be containing the chaos energies of Dragon Mountain, keeping it in one place so it wouldn’t teleport dimension-to-dimension. There was also a “secret” the party learned in the Dumathoin-worshipping dwarven conclave Forgehome that said “the Chaos Matrix cannot endure”… which was a reference to that so-called Stasis Matrix. Remember that a variation of it was introduced by the IT Crowd in that crystal protective matrix put around Kyone when the Spider Queen started to take her over. However, much like the smaller version, the actual Stasis Matrix had not been functioning entirely as intended. It had certainly been redirecting the chaos energy, but instead of dispersing it, it had been storing it in a super-dense form within the crystal. My plan was for the energy to become so dense that it eventually attracted a comet at a dramatically appropriate moment, striking the capital of Ionia and creating the Chaos Scar in the mountains north of there (there was a whole 4E adventure path of 10-15 adventures called the Chaos Scar that had some stuff I wanted to run). This would kill King Titus Imperius and throw the nation of Ionia into chaos. Hopefully, by then, Gilraith Featherin would have been mayor of Altair for a while, and would have enough political clout with the military that he could get support to make a bid for the Kingship. There would be other contenders, of course, but Featherin’s Juan Peron style rise to power would be unstoppable. The hope was to do this around levels 10-12, and have the party get back to Ionia just in time for them to help out with politics, stopping chaos, etc.

Osip & Queen Mab: No secret that I was pulling heavily from the Dresden Files books for this plot about Nikolai’s brother becoming Mab’s Winter Knight. However, the idea was to have Osip be a recurring frenemy of the party, doing Mab’s evil bidding while trying to help his brother. Wasn’t sure if you were going to have to kill her or him, but I was curious to see how Nikolai dealt with it.

The Beast of Talgora: was actually the Tarrasque. Karath’s spirit ran into it in a narrated cut-scene that I ran via email with Mike. It’s rage was going to be a parallel to the headless Night Walker from Spirited Away, and I was going to have some kind of ambitious humans from Pax Arcana stealing magic from the Pool of Life, which was why the beast was more active lately. That probably would have happened in the level 15 range.

The Star League: There was a college of astronomers, astrologers, & star warlocks that I built in one of the northern countries near the mountainous frontiers. Remember one of them, Centauri, was someone the party helped for a few sessions? Well, he was going to call them in to help defend the college from a force of Kodan giants in the mountains, lead by the warlord Zur, who would have found a way to get an armad of airships for the giants. This was largely an elaborate setup so that I could directly quote the 80s sci-fi movie The Last Starfighter and have Centauri send a letter to the party that read “Greetings star-fighters, you have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Zur and the Kodan armada,” because I’m a nerd like that. But it also would have set up some really cool/dynamic fights against flying giants in airships. That would have been a late paragon-tier adventure.

The Egg of Io: This, also, would have tied into the Tharizdun plot. I wasn’t sure if the egg was going to be a thing that, when combined with Tharizdun, could create a new, whole, not-crazy god, or if I just wanted the egg’s presence in the world to make more breaches of the reality contract that had previously held the gods out of the world, but it was definitely going to be some kind of thing. Depending on the paragon paths you chose at level 11, it also might have been involved in some of the powers you received in your new classes (if any of them had weird extra energy gifts related to them).

Bane & Coventry: Was sort of a wild card. The fact that his church was gaining power in Coventry, which ended up getting overrun by Fey energy, was going to cause some kind of conflict, though I wasn’t sure what. A lot of it depended on what the party did. Maybe his church could have been used against the Fey. Maybe this would have kept Mab (who was given dominion over Coventry) in check to protect mortals in the nation. Maybe the party was going to be responsible for a new horrible church of war & conquest taking over a nation. Who knows? It was a neat angle to play, though, and I do always love screwing players over with unforeseen consequences… er, I mean “exciting plot”.

*
Other Adventures:* Most everything on the Bard’s Tale page had an adventure hook or two in it that I was ready to run. Some were more world-spanning than others, but all had the potential to be connected to other secrets in the world. I hadn’t figured out a way to work stories into Jessa or Jota’s character’s backstories much yet, as they were both relatively new… but I was planning on tying Jota’s character into some of the dwarven plots, and maybe having Jessa’s goliath being connected to stone elementals and having some connection to Dumathoin, or else being distantly related to some of the Kodan giants. Also, I planned at some point to have an entire session of chasing Mr. Danforth around, because KITTY.

Whew… that was a LOT. If you have other questions about stuff in-game that you always wondered, let me know. I’m certain I’ve probably forgotten large bits of stuff.

I wanted to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to set these plots in motion, and to watch as your characters uncovered and acted out bits of them. The New Altairian Heroes were pretty awesome, and I’m happy to have had the chance to help create some of their adventures with you all.

NOTE: This was a smaller session with just Jota/Blackhand, Greg/Fury, and Jessa/Anaru. NOTE: This series of adventures is partially/loosely based on the published adventure H3: Pyramid of Shadows (though many liberties have been taken).

NOTE: This was a smaller session with just Micah/Nikolai, Valarie/Akara, & Jota/Blackhand. NOTE: This series of adventures is partially/loosely based on the published adventure H3: Pyramid of Shadows (though many liberties have been taken).

After getting shot up out of the ground by the River Archfey, the party saw that they were behind the Mekhet army that their allies (Bane-ites & witches & Pelorians) were moving to intercept. They saw a large black pyramid (about 10 ft high by 10 ft wide) being ritualistically moved with magic by several mummy priests. They also determined that the energy being used to animate the corpses of most of the Mekhet army was coming from the pyramid, which was actually a modified-shape portal that was drawing the power from somewhere else.

Rushing at the pyramid (while attacking a few mummies along the way), the party jumped through the portal… and ended up in different places.

Akara, Nikolai, & Blackhand ended up in a room with smokey-black tiles. However, the others were in a room of smokey white tiles, and Blackhand was paradoxically in BOTH rooms somehow. Eventually realizing that they’d have to seek out a way to reunite with one another, the Akara/Nikolai/Blackhand group started exploring.

First, they found an obsidian orb encased in an intricate gold & silver latticework cage. They determined that the orb had an intelligence trapped inside it… which appeared as a severed female eladrin head who said her name was Vyrellis. Nikolai remembered hearing a store (on the Bard’s Tale page) about the Black Pyramid and Vyrellis’ former lover, a tiefling wizard named Karavakos who had tricked the Lords of the Nine Hells into contracts where they’d have to work against one another. They had constructed the Black Pyramid as a prison to contain this tiefling, and over the centuries had also put others they wished to torture/hold eternally in there as well.

After freeing the orb of Vyrellis, they learned that she had been fractured, and that if they could recover all the pieces of her, that she could help them escape the pyramid. Currently the orb contained a portion of her Intellect & memories, but little else. She let the party know that the pyramid was split across two dimensions, and that some of her parts were in the other dimension (where the other half of the party is). However, she said there was a rare opportunity, because the pyramid was built with the souls of an ancient people who believed cats to be their gods, so Blackhand, with Mr. Danforth, had been allowed to enter both sides by the souls who made up the fabric of the pyramid (and thus explaining why Jota will be at both games).

Seeking another piece of Vyrellis, the party went down, eventually ending in a swampy area where a group of elves were being forced to watch the corruption & destruction of Nature. The three fought an elder Otyugh, and eventually convinced the elves (whom Nikolai identified as the anti-Erathis, terrorist nature group “The Eternal Thorns”) that it was their own rage & spite that was holding them prisoner. When that was released, the ghostly image of one of the slaves used to create the pyramid appeared with a small box. When Blackhand opened it, Vyrellis was made more complete, as her anger and more memories of what had happened between her and Karavakos. She asked Blackhand to take her orb, and suddenly he found himself in the smokey-white room with the others. Meanwhile, Nikolai & Akara were left behind in the nature room, discussing things with their new terrorist allies(?), the Eternal Thorns.

or "Just another Tuesday"

As the canary flew off, Nikolai took one last puff on his pipe and looked up to see that he and his friends were in the middle of several armies… witches, feral dragonborn, soldiers of Bane, Dambrathi Pelorians… and he didn’t want to forget Detham’s wyvern cavalry, which was probably in the skies somewhere. With a sigh, he rose to his feet to greet the dawn… just another day in the life of the New Altairian Heroes.

[still working on this]
The game…

General discussions among the generals.

River Quest: plant river jewels in Thay & Pax Humana to reveal that humans are NOT the top of the chain & should respect the power of rivers.

Do you make a habit of having my Winter Knights die near you & your friends?

The game ignored last season’s cliffhanger at the start, instead jumping to the airship, where Praxis/Lisa and the rakshasa Kalarel had a brief conversation about Akara. And by “conversation”, I mean Praxis refused to answer any of Kalarel’s questions about his (alleged) old partner. Their lack of discussion was interrupted, however, by a chill in the air, and the appearance of a frost genasi who announced himself as “Lloyd Slate, Winter Knight to the Queen of Air & Darkness, Mab”. He said that his queen had sent him there to make sure they could not interfere in the fight back with the dragonborn army. A fight ensued (with Greg taking the reins of the NPC Kalarel), and the party killed Mab’s Winter Knight.

The two then realized they needed to turn the airship around, despite the previous concerns about the airborn dragons that might attack/get-attacked-by the airship. Kalarel hit the “BATTLEMODE” button, and the ship identified 5 draconic targets (2 gold, 2 silver, 1 mithral), all diving towards the ground. Kalarel told Praxis that the ship could target two of the dragons, and asked her which ones. She chose randomly, and the ship went after one gold & one silver as Praxis jumped on a flying carpet (which was low on energy, and could only safely get her to the ground) to join her friends.

JUMPBACKDOWN TO THEGROUND.

Back on the ground, in the moment after Baba Yaga disappeared and all the dragonborn of Detham’s Legion and their draconic allies in the air above lost their sentient minds, an unnatural calm fell over the field as almost everything froze into place and a terrifyingly beautiful woman showed up. This was Queen Mab herself, Archfey of incredible power. She had arrived, she said, to speak with Ginger/Elizabeth, whose Grandmother, Baba Yaga, had baptized her with her tear before departing. According to Mab, the Grandmother of all Witches had been gone for much longer in the actual Feywild than the moments she’d appeared to have been gone in Coventry (which, despite the fey blood magic ritual, is still technically a part of the Prime Material plane in some regards… though not in others). In fact, she’d been missing for a year and a day in the Feywild, which had some significance (according to the Arcana checks the party made). Mab said that Ginger was able to speak for her Grandmother, given the baptism, and wanted to repay a debt she owed Baba Yaga through Ginger.

While the party was more than a little wary of cutting a deal with Queen Mab, Ginger agreed to hear her out.

Here was Mab’s offer: because no creature died in fey lands without her approval, she could bring back the lives of all the witches who had just been killed by Detham’s Legion prior to Baba Yaga’s break-down. However, because her servants had found interest in Detham’s Legion, they had recently made copies of the legionnaire’s thoughts (and those of the dragons with them) in ice crystals in the feywild, and she could bring back all of their minds & memories (from about a month ago), making them savages no more. Either way, though, she noted that she had recently lost her Winter Knight (in fact, she noted that this was the second time Anaru/Jessa had been present for the death of one of her Knights, referencing an event from Anaru’s backstory session we ran a few weeks earlier), and reserved the right to choose her new Winter Knight from among those who were chosen to be brought back.

The party debated this for a while. Nikolai/Micah specifically wanted to see his brother brought back to mindfulness, though he didn’t really care about Detham or the rest of his soldiers. Ginger felt a kinship to her witch sisters. Akara/Valarie was concerned with how Mab messing with death might interact with the Raven Queen’s authority. However, as Mab listened to Nikolai talk about his brother, she asked him to describe him more. Nikolai (innocently) spoke at length about how awesome his brother was, and so Mab altered the bargain: she’d bring back Nikolai’s brother Osyp as her new Knight, and then would bring back whichever side Ginger chose.

Ginger chose to bring the witches back, and Nikolai had a scant few moments to say farewell to his mentally-restored (but confused) brother before he was whisked off in a flurry of cold air, disappearing with Mab.

This, however, did nothing to stop the diving dragons, who suddenly started moving normal speed again, along with the rest of the world around the party. After a fairly epic fight, the party managed to subdue (but not kill) the 3 dragons. The revived witches were instructed by Ginger to contain (but not kill) the dragonborn, and soon a huge hedge wall/maze was raised around the mindless dragonmen.

After the fight, Ginger (who was seen as a leader by the other witches) worked with her sisters to create a sort of ruling council of witches. They chose to have 9 members total on the council (3 maidens, 3 mothers, 3 crones), with Ginger having the option of stepping in with a veto vote until Baba Yaga’s return.

Kalarel brought the airship low, now fully-powered, and managed to use the other red wizard minions he’d mentally controlled to activate the magical lift circle, so that he could easily move folks to and from the ship. While the party was not happy with the fact that Kalarel & the ship had, effectively, eaten 2 good dragons, they weren’t in much of a place to alter the past.

As night fell, Nikolai wandered around the hedge enclosure, standing on a hill to look over into the crowd of mindless dragonborn, wondering if he’d made the best or worst decision of his life. One of the witches managed to help him find Detham’s ring, the gold version of his own ring, which Nikolai stashed away for now, seeing that Detham himself didn’t even recognize its significance. While Nikolai sat on the hill, uncertain of himself for the first time in a while, a Canary landed near him and started talking to him. (Nikolai recognized the significance of a Canary related to Bahamut, but didn’t let his awe affect his conversation). The Canary offered counsel, but also said that Nikolai would need to strengthen himself for two armies approaching with the dawn. The canary then flew away.

As dawn broke, the sun brought with it an army from the east, the soldiers of Dambrath, the Pelor-worshipping nation to the east. To the south, a slightly smaller group (though better regimented) of black-clad soldiers arrived with the banner of Bane flying above their heads.

The session ended with the leaders of both forces riding forth to meet with the party.

...It's good to see you too, Nikolai.

NOTE: Praxis/Lisa was not present for this game, and stayed aboard the airship with Kalarel.

This session began with the party aboard the airship.

Headed towards Baba Yaga’s forest in Coventry after Ginger heard troubling prayers to the grandmother of witches, the ship’s alarms started going off when it got too near to the circling dragons that were connected with Detham’s Legion. To avoid finding out what “BATTLEMODE” on the dragon-eating ship was, the party agreed to get dropped off at the edge of the woods and hoof it to the center where Detham & Baba Yaga were facing off.

Along the way, they happened upon a battle between a force of witches and a force from Detham’s Legion. In the middle was a possum farm, whose family was being protected by the goliath gladiator Anaru/Jessa (who was defending a humble family of possum farmers). As the dragonborn leader & Anaru crossed blades, Nikolai/Micah was able to fly up on a carpet to stop them, realizing that the leader of this force of Detham’s legion was none other than his long-lost brother, Osyp. While Nikolai went on about the hypothetical threats and motivations of the two warring sides and the impending doom likely to result from going to war with the Grandmother of Witches, Osyp raised his hand to make his forces stand down, and asked his brother how he’d been. Meanwhile, Ginger/Elizabeth was able to convince the leaders of the witch group, some drow matrons, to stand down as well.

Nikolai briefly spoke with his brother, who had tentacle-like scars on his skull, and learned that Detham had rescued his brother from an enslaved life among the mind-flayers. Osyp kept grabbing at a crystal medallion around his neck, which he said helped him hold on to his own thoughts, and to shut out the nightmares the mind-flayers had put there.

The party eventually convinced both sides to head as quickly as possible towards the confrontation between Detham’s main legion and Baba Yaga herself, who was manifest in the real world. As the party arrived, Ginger jetted out into the no-man’s land between the encircling dragonborn & Baba Yaga’s hut, heading straight for her Grandmother. However, simultaneously, Detham called out to Baba Yaga, blaming her witches for all the undead, and telling her “this is the fate of all who practice your foul magics!” as he motioned for his men to slit the throats of around 1000 captured witches.

Baba Yaga was none too happy with this, and something snapped within her. A single tear fell, which Ginger caught. Baba Yaga’s eyes became voids like black holes (that Akara/Valarie almost remembered from somewhere in a previous life, but couldn’t quite place). She spoke in a voice whose words ripped at the reality around them, and called out to Detham: “Sons and Daughters of Io, you have been blessed with the gift of discerning minds capable of learning and making choices… but you do not deserve those minds, so I take them from you.”

With that, all the dragon-blooded creatures in a 4-5 mile radius lost their conscious minds, reverting to animal-like ferocious states. Osyp, however, was quick enough to leap at his brother, shielding Nikolai while pressing his own thought-protecting necklace against Nikolai’s head. Nikolai retained his right mind, while his brother did not.

The dragonborn went crazy all around, but the party was more concerned with the five feral dragons overhead, all of whom were roaring and diving at them.

"I don't know if you hear prayers on altars that are about to be burned down, but I'm coming for you."

NOTE: Only Greg/Fury, Jota/Blackhand, and Micah/Nikolai were present for this session. Jessa was there briefly to discuss her pop-in new character, Anaru, and to learn a bit about the world.

The game began with the whole party on the Airship. Many were still resting after the massive fight against Valindra & her Bone-Forged super-soldier, but Fury, Blackhand, and Nikolai were all up and about. The airship, now piloted by Kalarel, was floating above Coventry. By utilizing the magic map the party had and altering the altitude of the airship, Kalarel was able to make the map function like a sort of crude Google Map to get a sense of things all over the nation. Here are the details you were able to suss-out:

Metaphysically: It seems like High Lord Malfeather’s blood magic has made the barrier between the prime material plane & the Feywild almost non-existent in Coventry. Parts of Coventry itself may now actually be a part of the Feywild, and some Archfey may be laying claim to them (see below).

Brakana: The capital city of Coventry isn’t doing great, with the undead roving all over and the parks & canals teeming with violent fey forces. Near the center of the chaos, though, is a point of calm – the Ionian Embassy, which technically is Ionian soil, and thus not subject to the blood-magic curse that High Lord Malfeather cast upon all the fey in the region.

Site of Bane’s Visit: The church that has risen up in the spot where Bane was physically manifest in the world has militarized (unsurprisingly), forming a barracks and military encampment that is keeping undead and fey creatures alike at bay. It also seems that the ground around this area is unaffected by the blood magic curse, as the echo of Bane’s power will have none of that namby-pamby fey nonsense.

Cannery Coast: Since most of the fey energy was still drained out of this region when the curse hit, this is probably one of the parts of Coventry that is most closely tied to the Prime Material Plane still. Well, except for the forests of the western Cannery Coast…

Grandmother’s Forest: The forest of the western Cannery Coast, already full of folks praying to Baba Yaga, has been claimed by the Grandmother of all witches as her own, and hundreds of small witches’ covens were popping up in that forest (indicated on the map by little bonfires with dancing figures around them). Baba Yaga’s house itself was also sporadically bouncing about to different locations in this forest.

Eridu: In the southern part of the nation, the site where the former Cappadocian capital was unearthed in an archealogical dig has now started growing pyramids, and appears to be a stronghold for the Mekhet faction of the Cappadocian forces.

Tavern of the Sun & Moon: As it was already protected by multiple magicks, and since the owners took the party’s warnings very seriously, the pods of this entertainment resort are mostly untouched by the undead and the Fey curse. They’re a bit cut-off from the rest of the world, though, as they are surrounded by hostile fey & undead forces.

Western Coventry: In the swamps of the western part of the nation, an Ionian army fights against the swamp itself (as seen in the side-quest adventure we ran a little while back with General Featherin & his forces).

Jimmy: Down on the ground just outside of town was a lone, blind figure standing atop the party’s carriages, holding a symbol of Pelor to the sky. It was determined that Jimmy was the most in-need target, as it appeared the undead his faith kept at bay were only one of his problems… animated fey vines were also slowly sneaking up on him from behind!

Dropping the airship down low to get Jimmy, the party realized that several of them would need to stay behind… both to aid Kalarel in holding the ship a few feet off the ground and to make sure Kalarel didn’t just steal the airship. The unoccupied party members: Blackhand, Fury, & Nikolai took flying carpets down to swoop in on the creatures attacking Jimmy.

The battle with the zombies & plant monsters took a while, though Jimmy never had any doubts (not that he could see the threats arrayed against him). The martial fury of the three party members in the battle was impressive, to say the least, and eventually the carriages (and Jimmy) were safe on the airship.

Kalarel began to speak of the idea of setting the ship down on water somewhere, as he’d determined it to be sea-worthy. That would let him run the engine on a very low flame, which would burn much less Residuum. As he laid this out, though, Ginger’s hourglass – the one that collects the prayers to Baba Yaga – came to life with prayers from imperilled witches… and one prayer that offered a sort of threat… from Legatus Detham.

Apparently Detham, who had just arrived on the scene from the Underdark after getting Nikolai’s warning, decided that the many witches were responsible for the undead. The game ended with Detham’s Legion surrounding Baba Yaga’s hut, closing in for the kill.

On the map, the party saw that in the midst of Grandmother’s Forest, a large group of dragonborn was moving across the forests, leaving the smoking rubble of witches circles behind them.

"The other pilots all mysteriously ended up murdered!"

Game Date: Sunday, November 17, 2013In-game Time: dawn of the 39th day of Summer, 998 AC.

All 6 regular players + new player Jota were here for this session, though Lisa & Elizabeth had to arrive a little late, and Valarie had to leave early (though Lisa proxy-played Akara well after she left).

Fury/Greg, Ginger/Elizabeth, & Praxis/Lisa all raced off to Lady Shadowmantle’s estate. When they got there, the High Lady needed help fighting the undead, so Fury/Greg ran the password back to the rest of the group while Praxis & Ginger stayed behind to help out Lady Shadowmantle.

In another location, at High Lord Kane Dixon’s estate, the (new player Jota’s character) dwarf known as Blackhand discussed the information packet from the “New Altairian Heroes” with the High Lord. When undead attacked Dixon’s estate, he asked Blackhand to find the Heroes and let them know that their fears were coming true much more rapidly than they’d planned.

Racing through streets full of undead, Fury took a turn down an alley and ran into Blackhand, who had also turned down the alley from the other direction. They were both attacked by undead, and got to admire eachother’s combat prowess as they re-killed these creatures. By the time they got back to the Embassy, Praxis & Ginger had been teleported there with Lady Shadowmantle. Then, in a flash of holy power, the two Ionian staffers at the Embassy disappeared with every High Lord, in a calculated activation of their Words of Recall organized by Ambassador Cairn. “They’ll be upset that they can’t be in their home country, but they’ll be safe. And their home country isn’t really the same anymore anyway.”

The party then mounted the flying carpets and headed up towards the airship. On the outside of the airship, they found some air elementals and exterior-mounted Thayan wizards. While fighting outside, Praxis summoned a rainstorm with her special fey rainstick, which (given the heightened Fey energy of the region) also started causing more Fey creatures to appear in the deluge… but in completely random and non-helpful ways. The party may have accidentally been responsible for the tales that will later form about a flying feymire crocodile when one landed on an empty carpet, eating a Thayan wizard on the way… but I’m sure that will in no way come back to haunt them. Eventually forcing their way inside, the party navigated the long halways of the airship, choosing not to bother with the control room yet, as High Lord Dixon had told Blackhand he had a “man on the inside” there.

Heading to the engine room, they ran into Valindra Shadowmantle herself, who also activated her one working boneforged prototype, which she said Vecna had given her the secret to creating. The fight was long and tough (Valarie had to leave as it was starting, though Lisa jumped in to play both Praxis and Akara for the remainder of the battle). When it was done, Valindra’s body turned to dust (returning her soul to her phylactery) as the fire of the airship’s engine went out.

There was some scrambling to figure out how to restart the engine. It appeared to burn massive amounts of the raw magical dust known as Residuum, but needed a huge fire to ignite the initial fire. Jak heard something in his head from his god ( Agni), and started to tranform into a living flame that ignited the engine (making it burn brighter & stronger than before) prior to vanishing into the flame. Jak’s soul woke up and had a conversation with Agni, but we likely won’t see the results of that until Epic level or so.

A man looking like a Thayan pilot showed up and said “The other pilots have all been mysteriously murdered!” before dropping the disguise and revealing himself to be the rakshasa Kalarel. Things ended peaceably, but it’s unclear who really “owns” the airship at this point, as Kalarel is the only one on board who knows how to fly it (convenient how he murdered all the other pilots), and he mentioned that this was the logical evolution of his pirate persona, Blackheart Deathclaw.

"Mess with the bull, you're going to get the horns..."

Game Date: Sunday, October 20, 2013In-world time: pre-dawn hours of the 39th day of Summer, 998 AC.

Note: Lisa/Praxis, Elizabeth/Ginger, and Greg/Fury were not present for this game. This was explained narratively (see below).

After escaping the attack from the vampire spawn and the RQ Avenger/secret servant of Vecna, Akara noted that the souls of the slain Avengers were not being taken by ravens, but were instead being sucked into the Thayan airship up above the capital. The idea to use High Lady Shadowmantle’s flying carpets to go up and attack her great, great aunt was raised, but apparently the keyword for those carpets was held by the slain servant she’d sent to help the party, her man Bernard. So three of the party members (Praxis, Ginger, & Fury) decided to rush off to Lady Shadowmantle’s estate to get the password from her directly, while the other 3 (i.e., the present players) decided to stay with the surviving High Lords & try to find a safer place to stay.

As if sent as a sign from the gods, a huge, radiant raven flew up into the sky, circling one nearby part of the city, dropping feathers of radiant power onto the city. The party investigated, and found the Ionian embassy in Brakana, headed by an Ambassador who was an old friend of Akara’s: the dwarven RQ cleric Amaranth Cairn. He and his two assistants/staffers were keeping the undead at bay, but there was a large above-ground set of coffin-holding buildings that were creating a bit of a problem.

The party rushed off to a canal regulator station, where they opened the floodgates, letting water pour through the sewers, knocking out support structures, and effectively collapsing the cemetery buildings. That problem solved, the Ambassador received an urgent call for help from another one of the RQ avengers who was guarding High Lord Malfeather.

The Avenger, an elf named Theramin Brightblade, conveyed that minotaurs were attacking Lord Malfeather in the midst of all the confusion with the undead. The party rushed off to Lord Malfeather’s estate, and found that while Brightblade had died, two RQ Avengers remained alive: the halfling Giuliana Underhand and the gnoll Laughingtooth (both of whom served as NPCs in the coming fight to balance-out the smaller party of 3’s combat needs). They also found High Lord Paulo Maximo, whom the party never liked, and who was more concerned with his own safety than anything else.

The party found Lord Malfeather (and his daughter Olive) defending his Mythal (effecively an ancient Elven magic version of a Stargate) from two minotaurs the party knew well: Mr. Krup & Mr. Vandamaar. Lord Maximo approached Malfeather and (curse his sudden but inevitable betrayal!) turned out to be a form-shifting type of minotaur (a Yikaria) in disguise! Malfeather was caught off-guard and dramatically injured, taking him out of the fight while his daughter cared for him.

Krup & Vandamaar summoned a demonic minotaur from whatever hell dimension is holding their army and kept working on the mythal while the demon-minotaur & Yikaria faced off against the party. Though the party successfully slayed Maximo/Yikaria and the giant demon/minotaur thing, they did not stop Krup & Vandamaar from STEALINGTHEMYTHAL (Carmen Sandiego style, but with teleportation magic).

In a rage, after the combat, High Lord Malfeather enacted the secret blood magic (that ancient forbidden power that only Malfeather, Ginger, and Baba Yaga currently know how to use), calling upon the Fey heritage of his blood (remember in the feasts session, Jak had learned that Malfeather was actually descended from some Archfey) to empower the Fey magic of Coventry and command every Fey creature in Coventry to “Destroy the Outsiders”. This magic killed him, and it unfortunately left the vagueries of defining “outsiders” to crazy fey powers from the realms of dreams & nightmares.

The party took brief shelter in the Malfeather mansion, where Olive enacted a ritual that rejuvenated the party (giving those 3, at least, the effect of an extended rest), before they headed back to the Embassy to meet up with the others.

"Meanwhile, back in Ionia..."

In a brief side-adventure, several of our players took on the roles of some other heroes headed to Coventry to stop the undead uprising.

Back in the nation of Ionia, Nikolai’s message about the need for help in Coventry was heard by none other than his old commanding officer and friend, General Gilraith Featherin. General Featherin brought the request to King Imperius, who had some difficulty acting quickly to get an “official” army from Ionia to travel to a far-off land to help with an undead problem, given what happened in Ionia’s past with King Ironhammer. Though the King was embroiled in politics over the matter, Featherin managed to pull together a volunteer force of at least 300 soldiers, and the King called upon his old friend (and renowned hero of Ionia) the wizard Malachi Jones. Though the human wizard is now ancient, a bit senile, and probably also crazy, he did manage to still command enough magical power to teleport the whole army into Coventry… though not exactly to the capital.

The army ended up in the swamplands of western Coventry, where they eventually were trapped on an island by the tens of thousands of undead arms reaching up from the waters. Within the island, a small party of Featherin and a few of his cohorts found some catacombs that lead to the daughter of one of Cappadocia’s old ruling families, and ended up having to fight with this clearly psychopathic young (?) lady, who was now a sort of floating vampire thing that could detach her head and tentacle-lash you with her entrails.

After the fight ended, the party found a magical devices that was causing the undead in the swamp, but also found a mirror that magically communicated with the girl’s father, who spoke to the party. Ventrue Camarilla was the head of one of 3 political groups in old Cappadocia, and he explained the details of each:
The Camarilla (mostly vampires) sought to empower their souls, pursuing peaceful co-habitation with their living relatives, and many of them were not undead by choice. The Mekhet (mostly mummies) sought to empower their minds, becoming liches (and worse) to learn to control all dark magics and every force in the Weave. The Sabbat sought to rule by fear and empower their bodies, transcending life to become invincible and using chaos to destroy any armies that opposed them.

While Ventrue, who referred to himself as “the Prince” of the Camarilla, seemed like a reasonable person who could be dealt with, his descriptions of the other two factions seemed to indicate that they would be less reasonable. As the party returned to the surface to get the army moving again, the forest came alive with an unnatural Fey energy, and every tree and vine in the swamp started reaching out to expel the foreign army that stood on Coventry soil.